Former Tulsa Businessman Recaptured After Escaping From Federal Prison

Texas authorities have recaptured a former Tulsa-based promoter of fraudulent oil and gas investments who escaped from a federal prison in Bastrop, Texas late Sunday.

Jimmy Morrisett, 55, was serving a 9-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in federal court in Tulsa in 2013 to engaging in unlawful monetary transactions.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tulsa, Morrisett was once chief executive officer of now-defunct Red Earth Resources and Alpine Petroleum.

When he was sentenced in 2013, the feds said Morrisett was behind an massive investor fraud scheme which victimized 238 investors in Oklahoma and 37 other states and Canada. They said Morrisett promoted a Ponzi scheme in which investors supposedly received returns from oil and gas properties. Many of the investors were elderly and lost their life savings.

Morrisett was discovered missing after apparently walking away from the satellite prison camp in Bastrop, about 30 miles east of Austin.

Sheriff's deputies arrested Morrisett in an abandoned house in Burnet, northwest of Austin early Tuesday.